Sony Talks About the Potential for Early Access on PlayStation 4

In an interview with Sony's Adam Boyes, it was revealed that Sony has been tossing around the idea of introducing an Early Access type program on the PlayStation 4.

"We're always looking at different ways to make life easier. There's no stone unturned for what we can do. We're having conversations. We have a global strike team, plus an SCEA strike team, who are in charge of trying to figure out how to look at what's happening with early alpha access, or paid betas -- which we've allowed before with Dust 514. Even with our own product, PlayStation Now is going into open beta at the end of July. We're always looking at ways to make it easier and more accessible."

The Early Access games on Steam -- I'm just really drawn to them. You go to Steam's top-sellers chart and you'll see the top seller is a broken-ass game called The Forest, but it's still really good, and you can see the vision come through. How early on in the development phase is Sony willing to put something out there. Would Sony release a game at "alpha 0.1" in a special section on the PlayStation Store, for sale?

"Thatís one of the massive conversations we have internally -- that, at what point does [a game meet standards of release]? We still at some point ensure that we're being mindful of the consumer. We don't want somebody to stumble across that title and expect a full product, and have a negative experience.

"At the same time, I'm like you -- I want to help bootstrap people, to bootstrap them, to help them out. Like supporting the underdog for a sports team."

Any hints as to how early developers will be able to sell a game on PlayStation?

"Honestly, we're working through that right now. We're figuring out what's ok. We obviously have our tech requirement checklist that people have to adhere to. So we're internally discussing, what does that list look like this? What are the caveats? Stuff like this. So it's still a project that a lot of minds are considering. No details yet, but it's something on the top of my mind every day."

It's certainly an interesting idea and one that has proven to be both successful and a nightmare for gamers, developers, and the curators of the Early Access itself.